“Perhaps you are here for your opinions?” “_Ah_, _mon Dieu_, _non_; _je ne suis pas homme à semblable betise_. I have no opinions. _Je faisois . . . mais ce n’importe_; _je me trouve ici_, _où je crève de faim_.” “I am sorry to see a brave man in such a distressed condition,” said I; “have you nothing to subsist upon beyond the prison allowance? Have you no friends?” “Friends in this country? You mock me; here one has no friends, unless one buy them. I am bursting with hunger. Since I have been here I have sold the clothes off my back, that I might eat, for the prison allowance will not support nature, and of half of that we are robbed by the _Batu_, as they called the barbarian of a governor. _Les haillons_ which now cover me were given by two or three devotees who sometimes visit here. I would sell them if they would fetch aught. I have not a _sou_, and for want of a few crowns I shall be garroted within a month unless I can escape, though, as I told you before, I have done nothing, a mere bagatelle; but the worst crimes in Spain are poverty and misery.” “I have heard you speak Basque; are you from French Biscay?” “I am from Bordeaux, _monsieur_; but I have lived much on the Landes and in Biscay, _travaillant à mon métier_. I see by your look that you wish to know my history. I shall not tell it you. It contains nothing that is remarkable. See, I have smoked out your cigar; you may give me another, and add a dollar if you please, _nous sommes crevés ici de faim_. I would not say as much to a Spaniard, but I have a respect for your countrymen; I know much of them; I have met them at Maida and the other place.” {152} “Nothing remarkable in his history!” Why, or I greatly err, one chapter of his life, had it been written, would have unfolded more of the wild and wonderful than fifty volumes of what are in general called adventures and hairbreadth escapes by land and sea. A soldier! what a tale could that man have told of marches and retreats, of battles lost and won, towns sacked, convents plundered! perhaps he had seen the flames of Moscow ascending to the clouds, and had “tried his strength with nature in the wintry desert,” pelted by the snowstorm, and bitten by the tremendous cold of Russia. And what could he mean by plying his trade in Biscay and Landes, but that he had been a robber in those wild regions, of which the latter is more infamous for brigandage and crime than any other part of the French territory? Nothing remarkable in his history! then what history in the world contains aught that is remarkable?